About Randall

Dr. Randall Hughes is an ecologist and marine biologist focusing on the causes and consequences of species and genetic diversity in coastal systems. She has conducted experimental work on plants and animals in seagrasses, salt marshes, oyster reefs, and kelp forests. The common thread throughout these activities is a long-standing interest in generating information that can enhance the effectiveness of conservation and management decisions.
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Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

Much like David finds it hard to distill why the oysters that he studies are so intriguing, I often struggle to convey the charisma of the salt marshes and seagrass beds where I spend so much of my time. At least people like to eat oysters! It can be harder for people to find a connection with the plants that form so many of the critical habitats along our coast (unless of course people misunderstand the meaning of “In the Grass” and think I study a VERY different type of plant!). But even if it is not recognized, there is a connection between the salt marsh and our everyday lives. Like oyster reefs, salt marshes provide many benefits to society, particularly along the coast:

1. A place to live (for marine and terrestrial animals)

Periwinkle snails are among the many animals that make use of the salt marsh habitat.

Even if you’re one of those folks who find it hard to get excited about a bunch of plants, don’t tune out – the salt marsh is teeming with animals! Snails, fiddler crabs, mussels, grasshoppers, dragonflies, and snakes (!) are all critters that we encounter regularly when the tide is out. And there’s always a bit of an adrenaline rush when you see an alligator hauled out nearby. Even better, when the tide comes in, there are lots of animals that you and I (or at least, I) like to eat. Think blue crabs, mullet, and sea trout, for starters. Studies in Florida estimate that marshes provide up to nearly $7000 per acre for recreational fishing alone. Not bad.

2. A safer place to live (for people)

Although it’s generally frowned upon to build houses in the marsh (since it makes it hard for all those animals I just mentioned to live there), it’s a great idea to have lots of healthy marshes near your coastal property. Marshes can protect the coastline from waves and storms, leading to less damage in areas with marshes present. One estimate places the dollar value of coastal protection in the U.S. at over $8000 per hectare per year in reduced hurricane damages! Although here’s hoping that we don’t get an opportunity to test that particular benefit this year.

In addition to reducing the size and strength of waves, marshes also prevent coastal erosion. An unfortunate example of the role of marshes in erosion control came following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – plants in areas of the marsh that were heavily oiled died, leading to greatly increased rates of erosion in those areas (Silliman et al. 2012). Although the benefit of marshes for reducing erosion and combating sea level rise has been recognized for a long time, there are not any good estimates for what this erosion control is worth in $$. Given expectations of sea level rise in the coming years, I think that the motivation to understand the conditions that lead to sediment accumulation in marshes will only get stronger.

3. Clean water (for animals and people)

Because marshes lie at the intersection of the land and the sea, they serve as a filter for things trying to move between the two. When it comes to run-off and pollution from the land, it’s a very good thing that they do. Simply having a marsh present can serve as an effective alternative to traditional waste treatment. Of course, the protection can go the other direction too – marshes played a critical role in keeping oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill from getting to higher elevations.

4. A place to graze (for livestock)

Support for livestock grazing is an important role of marshes in some areas, including the U.K. Although it’s not a benefit commonly associated with marshes in this area, the decaying fence posts that extend out into some areas of St. Joe Bay suggest that it wasn’t too long ago that marshes were used for a similar purpose here!

I could go on, but these and other benefits of marshes are described in greater detail in a recent review by Barbier and colleagues (which I referenced on this blog in May of 2011). Here is the table that they put together summarizing the monetary benefits that we derive from intact salt marshes:

Luckily for us, salt marshes keep working their magic even in the absence of accolades or appreciation. But greater appreciation is needed to help curb the decline of salt marshes around the world – estimated to be as much as 2% per year! We hope that this blog will help generate greater understanding and enthusiasm for the incredible coastal habitats that we are lucky enough to work in every day. Let us know how we’re doing!

In the next two weeks, we delve into a habitat that we have only occasionally covered: seagrass beds. Next week we examine, with visiting researcher Dr. Peter MacReadie, seagrass beds’ role in fighting global climate change. The week after that, we head to Bay Mouth Bar, one of the most ecologically unique places in the world. Also, we’ll be look at the failure of the Apachicola Bay oyster reefs from a biological perspective. Here are a few images of our visit to a Saint Joseph Bay seagrass bed and of Bay Mouth Bar at low tide, when you see all kinds of strange and interesting creatures:

In the Grass, On the Reef is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

In September we’ll tour our coastal ecosystems and learn why we love them. These next couple of weeks, we’ll get a fresh set of eyes on Randall and David’s world of research and ecology as the WFSU/ Mag Lab SciGirls visit the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab.

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

When you think of your summer vacations during middle school, what do you think of? The first thing that comes to my mind is HOT (it was south Georgia, after all), and the next thing is Duke. I realize that is somewhat sacrilegious for someone who went to UNC-Chapel Hill for undergrad (at least if you care anything about basketball). But I spent 4 summers as a student at the Duke University Talent Identification Program, better known as TIP, and my 3 weeks spent there each summer definitely stand out in my mind.

It sounds horrible to most people – 3 weeks during summer vacation spent taking an intensive course that would typically last a semester. Although we spent a lot of time in class and studying, in many ways it was like any other summer camp, with time spent goofing off with really interesting and fun classmates from all over the country. I even crossed paths with some of my fellow TIPsters in graduate school!

So what does this have to do with In the Grass, On the Reef? In many ways, nothing. But in some ways, everything. Because one of those summers I took Marine Biology at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC, and it was there that I fell in love with doing research on coastal systems (and did my first experiment on fiddler crabs!). Admittedly, it still took me a while to figure out how to turn that into a career, but I’m not sure that I would be where I am today were it not for 3 weeks during the summer before 8th grade.

Enter the SciGirls. For the last 4 summers, I’ve been thrilled to participate in the SciGirls summer camp run by WFSU and the National High Magnet Field Laboratory (aka, the Mag Lab), aimed at introducing middle and high school girls to careers in science. Although the SciGirls program is structured differently from the TIP program that I participated in, it provides me an opportunity to share my love of field research with some really amazing girls, and hopefully to plant the seed in their minds that they can turn their love of science into a career too.

This year, in addition to explaining my research to the SciGirls and getting their help collecting data, we talked about the importance of being able to communicate what you’re doing to others. It turns out that explaining research to non-scientists is not something that scientists are trained to do, and it doesn’t always come easy. So we decided to start early with the SciGirls and see what happens! As you can see from the video, they quickly grasped what they needed to do and were quite comfortable with the camera. There were some discrepancies among the observations, but hey, that’s why we take lots of data – you can’t always see the overall pattern when you’re only looking at a subset of the information!

The circle is complete. Randall was once the middle school student being led into a marsh for the first time, she is now the one leading middle school girls in. Might this fiddler crab have inspired someone into a career in research?

After a lunch break and a look at the results of our data collection, we headed to the field. This part of the day is always my favorite – watching the girls explore, answering their excited questions, helping them pick up their first fiddler crab, assuring them their shoes / clothes will come clean. Even a short rainstorm didn’t dampen their enthusiasm. I would venture a guess that when these girls look back on their middle school summer vacation, their memories of SciGirls will be front and center.

For more on the SciGirls’ day at FSUCML, check out their blog. And check back next week for video of their experiences in the grass (and mud)!

Music in the video by grapes. In the Grass, On the Reef theme music by Lydell Rawls.

In the Grass, On the Reef is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

I recently completed teaching a 2-week course in Field Marine Science at FSUCML. Nine undergraduate students and one graduate teaching assistant lived in housing at the lab for the duration of the course, and we were busy from virtually sun-up to sun-down each weekday with class activities. It was a lot of fun:

The students of Field Marine Science 2012 inspect what we caught trawling through a local seagrass bed.

A group of students works to complete our field survey before the sun sets.

Students hunting for mud crabs for a lab mesocosm experiment.

This year, we focused on oyster reef ecosystems, taking advantage of past and ongoing projects in the Hughes and Kimbro (aka, “Hug-bro”) labs. We conducted a field experiment, field survey, and mesocosm experiment examining sediment accumulation on oyster reefs – and all in just 2 weeks!

Students quantify sediment accumulation on oyster shells during our field experiment.

Students process the contents of cages from our field experiment, looking for crabs.

Well, the field experiment and survey were started ahead of time by Hugbro personnel, but the labor-intensive breakdown and sample processing tasks were handled by the class.

Surveying mud crab abundance on our experimental reefs.

After all that time spent learning about, walking around on, and handling oysters, everyone was ready to eat a few by the end of the second week!

An underwater camera gave us a great view of the seagrass!

In addition to gaining hands-on research experience, a goal of the class was to become familiar with common coastal habitats in northern FL. So we squeezed in a few trips to seagrass beds and salt marshes as well, enjoying the opportunity to ride on a boat that didn’t require paddles.

Happily preparing to snorkel in St. Joseph Bay State Park, FL.

We observed lots of sea hares as we snorkeled in St. Joe Bay.

And we were all happy to don snorkels and masks to explore the seagrass instead of gloves and boots for the oysters!

Results of a study by Feldon and colleagues demonstrating an increase in the quality of hypotheses included in graduate student research proposals when the students had teaching responsibilities.

As I catch up on the research projects that languished a bit while I was teaching, it is reassuring to think about the results of a recent study illustrating that teaching can increase the quality of research. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy and value teaching for its own sake – but the tasks of teaching and research can often seem in competition with one another when time is limited (and when is time not limited?).

Additional results from the study by Feldon et al. showing better experimental design in research proposals written by graduate students that teach and do research.

Enter the study by Feldon and colleagues in the journal Science, showing that graduate students with teaching responsibilities formed better hypotheses and generated better experimental designs in their own research proposals than graduate students without teaching responsibilities. This benefit did not result from explicit instruction in hypothesis testing or experimental design geared towards the graduate students themselves – rather, the process of teaching scientific concepts to others made them better able to conduct research. So add to the inherent fun and satisfaction of teaching a boost to my research! Time to write a (better?) research proposal…

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve spent the last 6 weeks or so on a research trip to Australia. Most of my time was spent at the University of Technology in Sydney, but for the last 2 weeks, I traveled to Port Phillip Bay (the bay that Melbourne is on) to meet with some colleagues about their seagrass resilience project. One of our days was spent snorkeling around their field sites. The video above was taken by Dr. Peter Macreadie, and it provides a great sense of just how pretty these seagrass sites are. (I make a cameo snorkeling nearby in the blue shorts.) It was chilly (~ 70 degrees in and out of the water), but it was fun to take a look around!

Lake MacQuarie, near Sydney. In Randall's last post, she describes the research they did on foundation species like oysters, algae, and clams.

Dr. Randall Hughes FSU Coastal & Marine Lab

David and I are in Sydney, Australia, on visiting research appointments with the University of Technology Sydney. We arrived the first of the year, and after recovering from jet lag and getting our bearings, we embarked this week on setting up a couple of new experiments. We have great local “guides” – Dr. Peter Macreadie (UTS), Dr. Paul York (UTS), Dr. Paul Gribben (UTS), and Dr. Melanie Bishop (Macquarie University) – to introduce us to the field systems and collaborate with us on these projects.

Our seagrass and razor clam experiment is set up at Point Wolstoncroft in Lake Macquarie (north of Sydney).